Suburbs: Sub-par or sublime?

I was going to post this long rant about how I hate the suburbs but I had to self-censor. I do not want to offend my suburban friends here, but I'm against moving there. I think it's a much different experience if you grew up in a suburban town and move back there with a network of friends and family, versus picking up and moving into a new community. Ryan (who grew up in San Jose) is trying to convince me that now that we have a child, we should debark to the suburbs. I don't really want to do this for many reasons. I'd miss you guys! (Those reading this near my zip code.)

Last weekend we took a drive out to Claremont, where, he was told, they have good schools and it's a cute little college town with affordable homes, where he can commute to work supposedly in 20-30 minutes. It was 114 degrees. (It was 86 degrees at our condo when we got back.) We tried to find a nice little lunch place and there *were* interesting looking shops, which were all *closed* because it was a Sunday with school not in session. We found the one open, non-chain Mexican restaurant in town and ate there. (The deleted post contained a long tangent about how I always prefer to eat at independant restaurants with chefs, even bad chefs, to going to chain restaurants where the food is all the same mediocre heated up crap everyplace.)

In my ideal world, I'd have a small, nice, centrally located townhouse in the city, and a bigger weekend house with some acres of wildlife to explore in my free time. I'm not really used to suburbs, having grown up in a small rural town with lots of nature and now living in a densley populated part of town. Things I don't like: every house looking the same, traffic jams getting home in the evening, chain restaurants, having to drive to go to restaurants, shops, etc. If I do have to drive to get to places to shop, I want to drive through beautiful scenery, not through housing developments. I also cannot stand the heat. Literally I faint when it gets very hot.

Ryan wants to move to the suburbs because IHHO, it's safer and for the same money, we can buy a bigger house with a yard. Tract homes do not bother him since he grew up in one and supposedly, it's like when you're friends with twins, you do learn to tell them apart after awhile.

So, dear readers, where does this ideal place exist? Must have charming houses under $600,000, must be safe, must not be 114 degrees, and must not have crowds of people all crammed into one freeway to get home at night, and must have a job for Ryan in driving distance. I think many places like this exist, just not in Los Angeles county, and heck, not in Southern California at all.